Sale of Vorotan Cascade hydro power plants’ property may drive electricity prices up

YEREVAN, August 20. /ARKA/. Vazgen Safaryan, chairman of the Union of Domestic Commodity Producers, thinks the sale of the property of the Vorotan Cascade Hydro Power Plants may drive electricity prices up.

“I am opposed to any sale – it will be the government’s property, since it is a system generating the cheapest electric power in Armenia,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday.

He said that the electric power generated by the Vorotan Cascade Hydro Power Plants costs 6.8 drams per one kilowatt-hour, but after the sale the new owner may increase the price at least by 20%.

On January 29, 2014, Armenia’s government sealed a $180-million agreement with the United States’ Contour Global Hydro Cascade. This was one of the Contour Global Hydro Cascade’s biggest deals in Europe.

The Vorotan complex consists of a three-step cascade of hydro power plants on Vorotan River in Syunik province. Their aggregate capacity is 404.2 megawatt and their average annual output is 1.16 billion kilowatt-hour of power.

Residents of Armenia have to pay new prices for electricity after the Public Service Regulatory Commission upheld the Armenian Electric Networks CJSC’s intention to increase the prices on August 1.

In particular, now consumers pay 41.85 drams for one kilowatt-hour in daytime (from 7:00 to 23:00) instead of the 38 drams they paid before the increase and 31.85 drams for one kilowatt-hour in nighttime (from 23:00 to 7:00) instead of the previous 28 drams. ($1 – AMD 408.2) --0---